


(500) Days of Winter

by bloodofpyke



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:47:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started as filling a prompt at <a href="http://hotpiexoxo.livejournal.com/2220.html">Britt's ASOIAF rom-com ficathon</a>, but it's now turned into a full-blown WIP. Set in modern-day New York.</p>
<p>(I should say this is 100% me having fun; this isn't, like, a serious I-put-so-much-work-into-this fic by any means)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't find a list of the days as they happened in the movie, so I'm just writing the days in chronological order.

**Day 01**

She had run into him, crashed really, while chasing some cat, this skinny little thing _(girl and cat both_ , he thought as the hammer dropped to the ground).

“You watch where you’re going!” she had shouted at him, her face screwed up and red with anger, the wind teasing at her short hair. She made to push past him, to keep chasing the cat, but he grabbed at her wrist, and she seemed even tinier in his grip.

_“Me?”_ he’d asked incredulously, looking down at her in disbelief.

She wrenched herself from him, stomping on his foot and kneeing him between the legs, and then she was gone, before he’d even managed to get his breath back.

**Day 04**

They run into each other again, at a Duane Reade a handful of days later. “Look who it is!” he said, walking up to her. She turned around, a bag of Life Savers clutched in her hands, eyeing him coldly before turning back to the candy selection. “Really? You don’t remember me? God, how many guys do you leave lying on the ground that you can’t remember just one?”

At this, she turned around again, the hint of a smile playing on her face. “You’re _fine,_ ” she told him, “besides, you look like you healed up alright.”

“Yeah, well, my hammer got bent when it fell, so,” he answered, wanting to hit himself. _You sound like a little kid, for fuck’s sake. Just turn around and go, you’ll never see her again anyway._

“Oh yeah, you work in a...metal place,” she said, brow furrowed with remembering. “Hey! I’ve got a sword that’s a bit bent, could you fix it for me? It’s like a family thing, and my stepbrother would _kill_ me if he saw how dented it was now.”

_She has a sword,_ he thought, looking back at her. _She has a sword._ “Yeah, sure,” he answered, “bring it by sometime and I’ll see what I can do.”

**Day 11**

“I don’t know, man, she’s just, she’s different, you know?” Gendry was saying as he lowered a pie onto the counter.

“Different?” Hot Pie repeated. “Like, I don’t know, Jeyne was different? Or that other girl, the one with the black hair, what was her name? Oh yeah, like Brittany was different? C’mon, man, you’re always saying they’re different.”

“She is, though,” he answered stubbornly. “Dude, we talked about swords for like twenty minutes. Name one chick that I’ve ever done _that_ with.” A pause, while he sneaked a bite of the chocolate cake in front of him. “I think she could be, you know, _the one_.”

Hot Pie rolled his eyes. “Just because she likes the same weird-ass shit that you do, it doesn’t make her the one, you idiot. It just makes her weird.”

“You know, Hot Pie, just because _you_ haven’t-” Gendry stopped, and looked at Hot Pie for a moment before continuing. “Dude, what _is_ your real name?”

Hot Pie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” 

**Day 22**

She had come by on Monday, before the shop was even open. He had only just switched on the front lights and flipped the sign over when she had barged in. “Is it ready?” she’d asked by way of hello.

“And hello to you too. Nice to see you so bright and chipper this early in the morning. And how was your weekend?”

Arya had sighed. “It was good, great, actually, but is it ready?”

***

“Good, great, actually,” Gendry repeated later that night, helping Hot Pie close up his bakery. Some NYU assholes were outside, dropping cigarette butts everywhere, peering in through the glass, and Gendry gave them the finger until they turned away. “Like, what the _fuck_ , man?”

“Yeah, totally,” Hot Pie answered, emptying the display trays.

“I mean, she totally spent the weekend like, I don’t know, fucking some pretty boy or something.”

Hot Pie murmured his agreement, washing frosting off his hands. “You know what else?” he asked, “if she had said that her weekend was _awesome_ , that totally means she got pregnant from her night out with Obama.”

“I’m _serious_ ,” Gendry said, throwing up his hands. “It’s over! Over before it even began!”

He sighed, head dropping until Hot Pie tossed him a beer. “There ya go, mister drama king. Just drink until your sorrows go away. Or until you pass out, your voice is drilling a hole in my head.”

**Day 28**

“I don’t believe in love,” she’d announced at the bar one night, raising an eyebrow at him over her glass.

“Too busy chasing cats?” Gendry teased back. A beat, then, “Neither do I.”

“You sure about that?” Arya volleyed back, eyes all glitter and shine. She ignored Hot Pie making an ass of himself in the background (but really, what else was new?) and went on, “Because I’ve seen you look at your hammer and-” a couple next to them had looked up at Arya’s voice, too loud, too bold for such a little thing, and she glared at them now. “I’m talking about his _hammer_ ,” she told them, rolling her eyes and mimicking hammering nails. _“Not_ his _dick,_ god, get your minds out of the gutter.”

“Arya-” he started to say, but he was laughing and she was smiling back, and that was the end of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 31**

They were at Starbucks.

Even though Arya claimed she hated the place and all its stupid overpriced drinks, the second they brought out the red holiday cups, she was first in line. “I _like_ winter,” she would explain, throwing a scowl to the peppy barista behind the counter.

“Sure, sure,” Gendry would answer, smiling at her once she’d turned away.

They would get their drinks, plain coffee for Gendry (“You’re so _boring_ ,” Arya always said) and a peppermint hot chocolate for Arya, and move through the crowd to the door, falling onto the bench outside, breath puffing out in front of them. “God, it’s so fucking cold out,” Gendry said, shivering in his jacket, hands clasped around his coffee in a faint attempt to keep warm.

Arya knocked her shoulder against his. “Shut up, it’s _nice._ ” She paused, looked up into the sky. “I think it’s going to snow later,” she said dreamily. Winter was Arya’s spring, the only time she would get lost in dreams.

“Oh, you can sense the snow now, can you?”

“I’m a Stark; we’re _good_ at winter, stupid.” She stuck her tongue out at Gendry when he lifted his cup to his mouth and shoved him again.

He opened his mouth to say something, to make a rebuttal, but as he turned his head, he suddenly realized how _close_ they were on the bench. If he wanted to, he could just lean forward the tiniest bit and-

She kissed him before the thought even finished registering. She kissed him, and she tasted like peppermint, like the cold, like snow. She stood up a second later, tossing her cup in the trash and grinned down at him, still dumbfounded on the bench.

 _“C’mon,”_ she said, grabbing at his arm. “You’re off today, right? I want to go ice-skating!”

**Day 34**

She had dragged him to a grocery store, some upscale by the Park. “I need food,” she whined on the subway. “I only ever have candy in my house but I need _food_.”

“Yeah, well, who’s fault is that?” Gendry replied. He knew that Arya lived alone, though he had never set foot so much as a block within the place, but he also knew she came from money; the Starks were a big name in New York, something to do with political reform and the days of old.

“Shut up,” she said, shoving him.

***

It was fun though, grocery shopping with Arya. _A bit like shopping with a little kid,_ he thought as he pushed her arms away from a box of cookies. “Not unless you get some carrots or something.” 

“I’m not a fucking _rabbit_ ,” he heard her mutter as she stomped away. But she came back, carrots clutched in her hands, and beamed as she reached up and grabbed the cookies.

“This is nice,” she said as they pushed the cart through aisle after aisle (he had discovered that she was a picky eater, filing that information away for later, if there was a later). “Almost like playing house.” Arya smiled then, briefly, looking down at the can of soup she was holding.

Gendry raised a hand, hovered it above her shoulder for a moment, but then she turned back to him and he dropped it, so quickly he could almost pretend she didn’t see.

***

“Are we going to have to take these all the way back to your place?” It was a lie, but barely; he had no idea where  she lived, no idea if it was close or not, but he wanted to, and that was all he needed to toss out the question. “Because it’s fucking freezing out there.”

“Am I going to have to warm you up?” Arya asked, leaning in so close he could feel her heart beating, backing him into the empty bathroom, their cart sitting forgotten outside the door.

**Day 35**

Arya went back to her place alone, ducking into a faded cab, her arms full of groceries, and all Gendry could do was grin at her, waving so big he must have looked like a lost child.

_I’m not though._

He turned on his heel and started to walk down, back to his apartment, the streets slowly getting less manicured. The people changed too, more scarves and combat boots, battered Moleskins peeking out from coat pockets, and he grinned at them all.

Somewhere, a beat was playing--or was that just in his head? It didn’t matter, not really, because all around him everyone else was swaying to the same beat. They all grinned at him too, all these strangers passing by, and something in his chest swelled and swelled until it was like to pop and burst open in the middle of the street.

The music was still playing when he unlocked his apartment door.

**Day 87**

They were browsing On Demand for something to watch, but it was hard to find a movie that Arya would agree to. “Ugh, not that one, there’re too many _kids_ ,” she had cried, throwing a pillow at him. “Not that one either! Are you crazy? It’s about _cancer_ , why the hell would I want to watch _that?”_

She danced up to him after that, snaking her hand up to him and grabbing the remote and going back to the menu winking at him. “Close your eyes,” she told him, “no peeking until I’ve put it on!” _Put what on?_ Gendry wondered, but he closed his eyes all the same. “And no peeking!”

A few seconds passed before, “Okay, you can open your eyes now.” He did, slowly, carefully, and as he took in the contorted bodies on the office chair, Arya hooted with laughter. “You know, that looks pretty doable,” she said thoughtfully a few minutes later.

 _You look doable,_ he almost said back, but he didn’t, because suddenly he was being led to the armchair in the corner and they were kissing and their clothes were in a crumpled heap in front of the TV.

(It wasn’t doable, it turned out, at least not for them, but it was fun nonetheless)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since an update; I tend to get caught up in other projects and forget to work on the ones I've already started!

**Day 109**

“This is it,” Arya shrugged, dropping her keys on the table next to the door.

“It’s very...you,” Gendry answered, looking around. And it was; it was all bare walls and crumpled clothes littering the floor, half-opened boxes of cereal lining the counter, family photos sitting crooked on tables.

“I try,” she said, heading into the kitchen, coming back with her hand digging around inside an unopened box of Lucky Charms. “I got it!” she said next, her eyes lighting up, waving a a plastic toy in his face, “I got the toy!”

Gendry laughed at that, laughed at her, and then they were kissing, and Arya was leading the way into the bedroom, and the toy lay, forgotten, on the kitchen table.

***

“Jon’s my favorite, though,” Arya said the next morning, stretched out on the bed, her Batman boxer shorts riding up. “And I dreamed, you know, that he had died, something about knives and a white wolf, and when I woke up, I was screaming, clutching at the covers. He got so mad when I called him at 3 in the morning just to make sure he was still breathing.” 

“I bet,” Gendry murmured back, wondering if she ever dreamed about him, if she would ever wake up with the need to call him in the dead of night just to make sure he was still breathing.

“He was the one who gave me my sword, you know,” she told him, waving a hand at it resting in the corner, like he could have forgotten about it, could have forgotten that she had a sword. “It was a secret present, he told me, and I mustn’t tell anyone where I got it from. Father might laugh, but Mother and Sansa wouldn’t approve, he said.” Arya paused a moment, and smiled, whispering, “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

And Gendry reached over and kissed her, softly, on the lips, his hands resting on her shoulders until she moaned with impatience, moving to straddle him, kissing him back with more fervor.

**Day 118**

They were walking to Hot Pie’s bakery, hand in hand, and he couldn’t help but to spoil the silence. “What are we,” he asked, “to each other?”

Arya didn’t answer for a moment; she slipped her fingers from his and ran them through her hair, looking into the windows they passed. “Do you really want to do this?” she asked finally.

“I do,” he answered and he almost laughed at that, at the idea that he could ever say “I do” to Arya, but something in her expression was keeping him from laughing.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, Gendry, we’re just having some fun, don’t go and _ruin_ it on me, okay?”

“Of course not,” he said, leaning over and brushing a kiss on her hair.

**Day 154**

_I love her_ , Gendry realized.

He’d always known, he thought; it was always there, bubbling just under the surface, waiting to be seen. But still, it didn’t feel like a big revelation, the way he’d always thought it would; it just felt _right._

Hot Pie was the first to ruin it, of course. Over coffee and bagels, he said, “Really? You _love_ her? You guys have been together, what? Not even six months? And you _love_ her? Give me a break, Gendry.”

“Is it really so ridiculous? I do, though,” he said, “I love her smile, and the way she laughs right before she kicks or kisses me, and the way she keeps a sword next to her bed, and her-” But Hot Pie was miming puking into his coffee, so he stopped, the smile staying on his face.


End file.
